New Zealand and Switzerland have agreed to start trade discussions, after Trade Minister Todd McClay met with Swiss State Secretary for Economic Affairs Helene Budliger Artieda in Auckland on 16 July 2026.

The two met during a gathering of a group called the Future of Investment and Trade (FIT) Partnership. New Zealand helped set up that group, along with Switzerland, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, to make it easier for like-minded countries to work together on trade and investment rules. The new talks add to a trade relationship that is already busy: two-way trade between New Zealand and Switzerland was worth $1.88 billion in 2025, according to RNZ.

New Zealand sold $429 million worth of goods and services to Switzerland in 2025, mostly travel services, meat, and hides and skins. New Zealand bought $1.45 billion worth from Switzerland, mainly transportation services, medicines, clocks and watches, insurance and pension services, and fees for using intellectual property (things like patents and trademarks). Switzerland's Federal Department of Foreign Affairs also lists pharmaceuticals and precision instruments as its main exports to New Zealand.

McClay called Switzerland "an important partner for New Zealand and one of the world's most innovative and advanced economies." He said the trade dialogue would bring the two countries closer economically, both through direct trade and through international bodies like the WTO, the OECD, and the FIT Partnership.

Switzerland is not in the European Union, so these talks are separate from the free trade agreement New Zealand already has with the EU, which was signed in 2023. The Swiss dialogue runs on its own track.

Officials from both countries will hold their first meeting under the new trade dialogue in September.

The announcement follows another agreement signed just a couple of weeks earlier. On 1 July 2026, McClay signed a trade agreement with Costa Rica, Iceland, and Switzerland called the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability, or ACCTS. That agreement is designed to link trade with climate action — for example, by removing taxes on environmental goods and cutting subsidies for fossil fuels. The Swiss government said in November 2024 it would send the ACCTS to its Parliament for approval, with the aim of bringing it into force at the start of 2026.

McClay spoke about the government's trade agenda in a May 2026 speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, titled "International Trade in Troubled Times." He noted that countries around the world are putting up more barriers to trade, and said New Zealand's approach was to keep pushing for open, rules-based trade.

The broader context here is that the ACCTS and this new dialogue are part of the same push. The ACCTS already ties New Zealand and Switzerland to rules that remove tariffs on environmental goods and cut fossil fuel subsidies. The new bilateral talks could expand that into wider areas, like opening up more access to each other's markets for goods and services.

Because Switzerland sells a lot of high-value services and intellectual property to New Zealand, any future negotiations will probably get into some of the more complex parts of trade policy — things like digital trade, how intellectual property is protected, and whether professional qualifications from one country are recognised in the other.

It's not yet clear whether the September meeting will lead to formal negotiations or just be a first look at what might be possible. Either way, the government has made clear it sees Switzerland as a priority, and the relationship now has more structure behind it than it ever has.